Rishi Sunak's party just been hammered in the UK municipal elections. The path to recovery is difficult.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is unlikely to be celebrating the coronation of King Charles III this weekend, but he will be pondering a bleak future after watching a set of results pour in from a swath of municipal elections held around the country on Thursday. With nearly three-quarters of results declared by late afternoon on Friday, the Conservatives had shed 35 local authorities and more than 600 councilors. The main opposition Labour Party could barely conceal its glee – it is projected to have won a nine-point lead – boasting that the results show it would not just beat Sunak at the next election, but do so decisively. Sunak has until January 2025 – the last date he can legally hold an election – to turn things around, and the British economy is in big trouble after 13 years of Conservative government. Public services, including the much-loved National Health Service, are in a dire state, with teachers, doctors, nurses, train drivers and workers in many other services holding strikes over pay and working conditions.

Polls consistently show that the public thinks the government is handling negotiations with unions poorly Immigration is a major issue in British politics, with taxes at their highest in decades and trust in Sunak's party low. To turn things around, Sunak must also stop his party from tearing itself apart. The blame game for Conservative woes started last summer after Boris Johnson was forced out of office after months of scandals, including the "Partygate" scandal. John Johnson loyalists insist it was a grave mistake to have removed him from office, while the anti-Johnson cohort believes he trashed the reputation of the party while in office. Liz Truss' short premiership has done real damage to the Conservatives' main electoral selling point: economic credibility, as she proposed unfunded spending and tax cuts that caused the pound to fall to its lowest against the dollar since 1985.

Both factions agree that Truss' short tenure has done real damage to the Conservatives' main electoral selling point: economic credibility. Ahead of this latest set of local elections, there was concern among some in the party that poor results might cause for loud calls from the right of the party for someone to challenge Sunak. There are people who believe Johnson returning ahead of the next election would give them the best chance at victory, but these people are now a minority and Johnson has gone off grid, earning huge amounts of money giving speeches and writing books. A group of Conservatives broadly from the Johnson wing of the party will meet at a conference organized by the Conservative Democrat Organisation. They believe Johnson was kicked out of office unfairly and that Sunak was imposed on them and their grassroots members by the big cheeses of the Conservative Party.

Most of the party seems to be on message, downplaying the local elections and pointing out that Labour would still need a swing bigger than Tony Blair achieved in 1997 to win a majority of just one seat. If polls don’t improve dramatically, Sunak should start looking over his shoulder. The Conservative Party has developed a taste for regicide since 2016, and if the economy fails to improve, he can’t live up to his promise to “stop the boats” of